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Saturday, September 03, 2016

The Power of One - we all have it

The nations of the Dzawada'enuxw are uniting and traveling down the coast of Vancouver Island locking arms with other nations in their quest to remove salmon farms from their traditional waters, sometimes called the Broughton Archipelago. They have said "no" for almost 30 years to the salmon farms using their territories.

But somehow Canada, BC and the Norwegian/Japanese salmon farmers decided to ignore them and so today one third of the BC salmon farming industry has made themselves at home in Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw territory.

They will be in Victoria TOMORROW, Saturday Sept 3, 2016 - 1 PM At the BC Parliament Buildings

Vancouver ART GALLERY Monday Sept 5, 2016 1 PM the Art Gallery

This industry is disrupting the web of life throughout this coast, entrapping wild fish, disrupting migration patterns that fed hundreds of species, smothering the seafloor, altering the chemical composition of the water with industrial feedlot effluent, release of billions of lice, viruses and bacteria daily! The Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw, a people with a 13,000 year relationship with this place, view this as yet another form of genocide.

This remote tribe from the Kingcome Valley has received support from nations in Campbell River, Comox, and Nanaimo.

They will be in Victoria TOMORROW, Saturday Sept 3, 2016 - 1 PM At the BC Parliament Buildings

Vancouver ART GALLERY Monday Sept 5, 2016 1 PM the Art Gallery

The Power of one is all we have, but we all have it. Please consider using that power and show up in support!

Gotcha!

I have now been on the RV Martin Sheen for 39 days! We have looked closely at salmon farms from Vancouver to Port Hardy. Ship's Log

I brought the boat to the Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw, in Kingcome Inlet, as they have fought this industry for nearly 30 years! They have said "no" from the beginning and yet 1/3 of the BC salmon farming industry is using their territory to grow Atlantic salmon.

The Kingcome herring have collapsed despite 30 years of protection from fishing, and the wild salmon are a fraction of what they used to be. This is highly predictable, this is what happens everywhere there are salmon farms placed among wild salmon and sea trout. This is why I cannot understand how the Government of Canada could possibly have given the industry long term licences on Canada Day, July 1, 2016.

The Minister of Fisheries Dominic LeBlanc was given the mandate to use science to protect Canada's infinitely valuable wild fisheries and yet he went ahead and gave Mitsubishi and the Norwegians, long term access to pollute the rich waters of BC with sea lice and viruses. These are problems that the industry has not solved anywhere in the world. How can Canada do this? What hold does this industry have on them?

The Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw have boarded three salmon farms in their territory in the last 2 weeks. Each time more people joined and most recently many chiefs from several sister nations - Namgis, Mamalilikulla and Danaxdaxw joined them.

On August 23, they boarded the Marine Harvest Midsummer farm in their territory -

During this event, I was asked to examine the farm salmon and so I lowered a Go Pro camera into the pens on a pole. In just a few minutes I witnessed all of this: SEE INSIDE A SALMON FARM

Industry and DFO have tried to tell us that farm salmon don't eat wild fish - well that is simply not true! Gotcha red-handed! As DFO is boarding fishing boats 17 officers with guns on a single boat http://www.thenorthernview.com/news/389620871.html But there is no response to wild fish entrapped in a Norwegian salmon farm, with farm salmon feeding on them.

If this concerns you, please check back on this blog as we move down the coast of eastern Vancouver Island over the next few days for event dates and times and then arrival in Victoria on Saturday, September 3rd and then Vancouver shortly after.

We need to make sure government knows that they have made a huge mistake. How can the government of Canada state that respecting First Nations is their sacred obligation and give foreign salmon farming companies permission to pollute the territory of nations who have said "NO."

My deepest thanks to the Sea Shepherd captain and crew, for this voyage into the darkside of salmon farming.

Public Relations Firm Claims to Have Ghost Written Thousands of Op-Eds in Major U.S. Newspapers

Laura Bentz of Keybridge Communications describes her company as "a boutique PR firm -- founded by a former writer for the Wall Street Journal -- that specializes in writing and placing op-eds."

"With some of the country's most influential trade groups and global corporations as clients, we run many of the major op-ed campaigns in the U.S. We place roughly 3,000 op-eds per year."

On its website, Keybridge openly claims to be able to "brand a CEO" by putting op-eds into newspapers in "virtually every major city."

Less openly, Keybridge carefully markets its services with a PDF that names people for whom it claims to have written and placed op-eds.

For a mere $5000, Keybridge offers this service in the PDF:

"First, we write a 500-800 word op-ed. Then we place it in one or more newspapers around the country. If we're pitching to a national audience, we guarantee that we'll reach at least 50,000 readers. Includes media monitoring."

The PDF claims credit for and includes full images of op-eds in the following newspapers by these individuals:

Wall Street Journal, an op-ed by Bill Ingram, vice president of Adobe Analytics and Adobe Social.

Washington Post, an op-ed by Doc Woods, a member of Virginians for Quality Healthcare.

Los Angeles Daily News, an op-ed by James G. Nondorf, vice president for enrollment and student advancement at the University of Chicago, and Jarrid J. Whitney, executive director of admissions and financial aid at Cal Tech.

Newsday, an op-ed by Patricia Morton, Dean and Professor at the University of Utah College of Nursing.

USA Today, an op-ed by Kevin Chou, CEO of Kabam.

Of course it goes without saying that organizations and political campaigns and businesses have staff ghost write or draft or assist with op-eds by their figureheads. So this could be described as merely outsourcing that service to a PR firm. But it's considerably more damaging to public communications than that, I think.

For one thing, there are millions of people with important and new and different things to say who do not have $5000 to spend on saying it. Read these op-eds in the PDF and see if you can claim they are in the top 1,000 you've seen. Is there one among them you'll have a hard time forgetting?

Additionally, paying $5000 for this service is not simply paying for research or editing. It's paying for the unfair advantage of having your op-ed pitched by people who've built cozy relationships with op-ed page editors, and who in at least some cases used to be op-ed page editors.

Even worse, it's paying for the insider skill of churning out or transforming an op-ed into just the sort of familiar, boring, cookie-cutter columns that clutter up the dying institution of the daily, dead-tree, advertising-and-rewritten-government-statement sheets we call major newspapers.

This is why the more stimulating op-eds are often to be found on independent websites.

But to the extent that this service can really reach 50,000 people whom one wouldn't have otherwise reached, it is part of the corruption of a thoroughly corrupt communications system. It's part of the rigging of everything that breeds cynicism and resentment.

Do op-ed page editors know that Keybridge pitches op-eds that it claims to have ghost written? Are they all completely, or only partially, ghost written? Those might be questions for some future WikiLeaks release.

Meanwhile, here's a fun fact: Keybridge is a supposedly savvy PR firm in Washington, D.C., that bears the name of a bridge named for Francis Scott Key who owned people as slaves, supported killings of African Americans, penned an anti-Muslim poem that later became a celebration of killing people escaped from slavery and of a flag surviving a battle that killed human beings during a war that failed to conquer Canada but succeeded in getting the White House burned.

Western Media Propaganda Threatens Peace and Prolongs the Deadly Conflict in Eastern Ukraine

Western media is becoming unhinged as its anti-Russia propaganda struggles to keep a hold on its consumers. Two recent examples provide evidence.

Pro-peace conspiracy emanating from Moscow

Gothenberg, Sweden. Swedish people like peace because they are dupes of Russian disinformation, says New York Times

On August 28, the New York Times published an article by its Moscow bureau chief about the troubling news (from the Times‘ viewpoint) that the people of Sweden are not happy with their government’s wish to join up with the NATO military alliance.

The ruling elites in Sweden and Finland have been quietly pushing for NATO membership for years. In May, the Swedish government pushed through the Riksdag a proposal for a ‘cooperation agreement’ with NATO, allowing it freer access to Swedish territory for transit and training. Finland already has such an agreement in place. In July, government leaders of the two countries proudly joined the NATO summit dinner in Warsaw.

But as a Reuters report at the time of the Warsaw summit explained, “An SvD/SIFO opinion poll showed 49 per cent of Swedes opposed joining NATO, with 33 in favor. Most Finns are against entering, and a government report said in April any such move would trigger a crisis with Russia.”

In the survey of 1000 Swedes carried out by pollsters SIFO for newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in June, 49 per cent said they did not want Sweden to join NATO, 33 per cent said yes, and 18 said they were undecided.

The results suggest public opinion has changed since the last SIFO survey on the topic in September of 2015. In that poll, 41 per cent said they were in favour of Sweden seeking NATO membership, 39 per cent said they were against, and 20 per cent were undecided.

At the time, the 2015 figures appeared to demonstrate a significant shift in public opinion in the traditionally non-aligned Nordic country, but SIFO’s most-recent round of results indicates that shift was short-lived.

The Times article by Neil MacFarquharaug began, “With a vigorous national debate underway on whether Sweden should enter a military partnership with NATO, officials in Stockholm suddenly encountered an unsettling problem: a flood of distorted and outright false information on social media, confusing public perceptions of the issue.”

The source of the “confusion”? The Times headline reads, ‘A powerful Russian weapon: The spread of false stories’. The article says there is “a flood of distorted and outright false information on social media, confusing public perceptions of the issue.”

The Times writer declares a case of Russian dezinformatsiya in action. So powerful is the dezinformatsiya that it can seemingly bamboozle two of the wealthiest and most-educated populations in the world and make them act against their best interests, or at least the best advice of the New York Times, that being to join NATO.

As to the exact source of the public tripwire that Swedish government leaders have encountered, the dezinformatsiya conspiracy fades into the mists of the northern boreal forest. The Times explains,

“As often happens in such cases, Swedish officials were never able to pin down the source of the false reports. But they, numerous analysts, and experts in American and European intelligence point to Russia as the prime suspect…”

Could public attitudes in Finland and Sweden towards NATO have anything to do with the historic ambivalence of Swedes and Finns to imperialist war alliances and their preference for peace over war? Apparently, the New York Times can’t climb out of its Russia conspiracy rut long enough to investigate.

According to the Global Peace Index as well as the Global Peace Index (produced annually by the Institute for Economics and Peace), Finland and Sweden score in the top 15 countries of the world in various measures of being peaceful, non-violent places to live. Could it be that the people in Sweden and Finland would like to keep things that way?

Meanwhile, here is the New York Times article’s own dezinformatsiya, in the form of a long list of alleged Russian propaganda initiatives that prove what a dastardly enemy it is:

“Disinformation most famously succeeded in early 2014 with the initial obfuscation about deploying Russian forces to seize Crimea.”

“… the simple truth that poorly trained insurgents had accidentally downed the [Malaysian Airlines Flight 17] plane with a missile supplied by Russia.”

“… the Kremlin’s English-language news outlets heavily favored the campaign for [Britain] to leave the European Union, despite their claims of objectivity.”

“Moscow’s targeting of the West with disinformation dates to a Cold War program the Soviets called ‘active measures’.”

“[The Russian state-owned television channel] RT often seems obsessed with the United States, portraying life there as hellish.”

“The weaponization of information is not some project devised by a Kremlin policy expert but is an integral part of Russian military doctrine…”

Reuters can’t write a truthful article

Meanwhile, the Reuters news agency published a report, also on August 28, purporting to look at the prospects for peace in Ukraine. The article is headlined, ‘Germany, Poland and France call for more efforts to end Ukraine crisis‘. Only ten brief paragraphs long, hardly a one in the article is untouched by distortions aimed at casting the best possible light on the right-wing, ultranationalist government in Kyiv and its civil war in the east of the country. Let’s read the ten paragraphs from start to finish:

The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Poland agreed on Sunday there should be greater international efforts to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters.

He said there had not been sufficient progress in implementing the Minsk ceasefire agreement. “Western officials were talking with Russia and Ukraine to encourage them to implement measures already agreed in the Minsk process, including communal elections,” he said.

“Fighting in eastern Ukraine” is Western news-speak for “We don’t’ wish to name the protagonist in the conflict in eastern Ukraine because it happens to be our friend and ally. And what’s more, we are hoping that you don’t notice that it is the army of Ukraine that has invaded and occupied parts of Donbass in eastern Ukraine, not the other way around.”

Reuters cites Germany’s foreign minister in saying “Russia and Ukraine” should implement the Minsk-2 ceasefire agreement (signed on February 12, 2015 in the Belarus capital of Minsk). But Minsk-2 is an agreement to end a conflict between two parties in Ukraine–the governing regime in Kyiv, and the people’s republics in Donbass (Donetsk and Lugansk). The agreement spells out the precise measures to be taken on both sides, including a cessation of military hostilities, comprehensive prisoner exchanges, recognition by Kyiv of autonomy for Donetsk and Lugansk, to be followed by the holding of elections there, and so on. What does all this have to do with Russia, apart from the obvious facilitation role which Russia (and other regional powers) could fulfill? Is Russia supposed to take over Ukraine so that Minsk-2 may be implemented? How well would that go over in Berlin and Washington?

Why not “Germany and Ukraine” or “France and Ukraine” to be encouraged to implement Minsk? After all, Germany and France are among the four members of the ‘Normandy Four’ group constituted to facilitate a resolution of the crisis in Ukraine and under whose facilitation Minsk-2 was arrived at in the first place.

“We have to work for a de-escalation of the situation,” [Steinmeier] told reporters after a meeting with his counterparts aimed at reinvigorating the Weimar Triangle [Germany-France-Poland] trilateral group.

Steinmeier said the group also wanted to reassure Europeans about the continued importance and relevance of the European Union after the June 23 vote by Britain to exit the bloc.

“The Weimar Triangle can plan an important role … It is a format where we can discuss progress or the lack of progress on issues such as the Normandy format aimed at ending the Ukraine conflict,” Steinmeier said.

The Normandy group comprises Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany.

So what, exactly, have Germany and France been doing to “de-escalate” the conflict in Ukraine? Have they called on Ukraine to pull its heavy weaponry out of the ceasefire zone and cease its criminal, daily shellings of towns and cities in Donbass, in total violation of Minsk-2? No. Have they called out Ukraine for refusing to recognize the Donetsk and Lugansk republics and thereby blocking the holding of elections as required by Minsk-2? No. How about Ukraine’s failure to conduct prisoner exchanges; have Germany and France scolded Ukraine for that? No. So why is Reuters misleading its readers about Germany and France’s failure to work to “de-escalate” the conflict?

The misleading is even worse, because not only have Germany and France failed to aid in de-escalating the conflict, they are constantly adding fuel to the fire. Recently, they led the European Union in extending EU economic sanctions against Russia, including Crimea. They are silent about the provocative action of the United States, Britain and Canada in providing military training and equipping of the Ukrainian army and paramilitary irregulars, which is then applied to the illegal and criminal war against the citizens of Donbass.

Germany and France are members of the NATO alliance whose lead member, the United States, recently constructed provocative and dangerous missile bases in Romania and Poland. These bases have been built as the U.S. undertakes a massive, trillion dollars-plus upgrade of its nuclear weapons. This includes designing new delivery systems that undo the current status quo of nuclear stand-off and greatly increase the possibility of accidental unleashing of nuclear weapons.

Why can’t Reuters provide its readers with important background information of the conflict in Ukraine instead of printing bland phrases that convey exactly the opposite impression of what is really taking place?

The leaders of Russia, Germany and France have agreed to meet to discuss the situation in Ukraine on Sept. 4-5 in China on the sidelines of the G20 summit, the Kremlin said last week.

A recent surge in fighting in eastern Ukraine, where Kiev is fighting pro-Russian separatists, and fresh tension in Crimea have raised concern that a fragile ceasefire agreed in Minsk in February 2015 could collapse.

“Recent surge in fighting in eastern Ukraine” is Reuters-speak for that which not must be spoken: in recent months, Ukraine has greatly increased its criminal shellings of the people of Donbass. What’s more, Ukraine conducts an ongoing military occupation of Donetsk and Lugansk territory and it calls the self-defense forces of Donbass “terrorists”, thus showing it has absolutely no intention of reaching a political settlement.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said last week he did not rule out introducing martial law and a new wave of military mobilization if the separatist conflict worsened.

“Separatist conflict” is Kyiv-speak/Reuters-speak for obscuring and confusing the source of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which is the refusal of Kyiv to grant the slightest decentralization of power in the highly-centralized Ukrainian constitutional setup whereby regions of Donbass could achieve a desired autonomy.

Of course, as a result of Ukraine’s prolonged and cruel war against the people of Donbass, it is highly likely that if given the chance, they would vote to secede from Ukraine to either join Russia or constitute their own independent republics. But that hardly makes them criminals or “terrorists”. As a matter of fact, that would be an entirely lawful act, consistent with international law, such as it is, and consistent with recent political experience in such countries as Canada (Quebec) and the United Kingdom (Scotland).

Propaganda disguised as news or policy is the modus operandi of Western media outlets in reporting on Ukraine. It’s a major contributor to making the conflict there so intractable because it lessens the pressure that would otherwise operate on the ultra-nationalist regime in Kyiv that it cease its civil war course.

Postscript:

On September 1, the Globe and Mail national daily in Canada published a propaganda opinion piece by Aurel Braun, a professor of international relations and political science at the University of Toronto and a centre associate of the Davis Center, Harvard University. The commentary is titled ‘The West can’t let Putin decide Ukraine’s future‘ and the text begins:

Last week’s celebrations of 25 years of independence in Ukraine were bittersweet. Domestic problems aside, fighting escalated in eastern Ukraine with Moscow-controlled separatist rebels, Crimea remained firmly in Russia’s grip as the Kremlin increased its military presence there, Russian forces massed on Ukraine’s border and the Putin government provocatively accusing the Kiev government of seeking to invade Crimea. A worried President Petro Poroshenko warned just days before that he could not exclude the possibility of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

There are two things of note in the commentary. One, the author says Ukraine would be “impossible to govern” if it were to adopt a federal system, ie a devolution of powers from Ukraine’s extremely centralized governing system to its 25 oblasts (regions). This will come as news to the people of many (most?) countries of the world that have form of federal division of powers, including Canada, The United States… and Russia!

Two, the author describes present-day Ukraine as suffering “decades of failure to institute fundamental economic reforms, it needs to address endemic and damaging corruption, and Ukrainian political parties must learn the art of political compromise and be vigilant against various forms of extremism.” So how can these apparently intractable problems be cured? Why, ‘blame Russia!’

With such uninformed but university-level discourse, it is no wonder that most of the comments by readers posted to the Globe article absolutely mock its ludicrous assertions (and thereby mock the Globe editors for choosing to publish it). Here are a few examples of the withering comments directed at the editors of the Globe:

* Russia is this and Russia is that… The author of this piece of shameless propaganda thinks that we all have a very short memory span and cannot think by ourselves…

* Yet another wretched screed in the endless stream of Russia-baiting, Putin-bashing media commentaries in western media. Cannot the Globe and Mail find some knowledgeable persons from time to time to write something more or less objective and sensible about these and other troublesome international issues?…

* Ridiculous article and the University of Toronto should be ashamed that they have hired someone who is more of a government propagandist than a ‘student’ of foreign events…

* Is this guy really a professor? …

* … The author would do well to stop citing people who’ve lied through their teeth since the [2014] coup – the criminal act which sparked the avoidable crisis. We should all stop listening to people like [Aurel] Braun, who are well-known for doing the same.

* Ah yes, Aurel Braun, the man who destroyed Rights & Democracy (and whose actions possibly contributed to the death of its former director) in order to protect Israeli policy from criticism, is well-known for his anti-Russian bias and willingness to lie to enable conflict…

Final word in yet another chapter of Globe and Mail pro-Kyiv propaganda to another Globe commenter:

“… If Western people and governments truly want to see the Ukrainian people begin to prosper, they will stop using that country as a chess piece in the Big Game. Work to ease tensions with Russia in this area, not exacerbate them.”

US Shows Support for New Brazilian Gov't., But Did It Play a Role in Rousseff's Ouster?

Now Brazil's president, Dilma Rousseff, is removed from office in what some call a legislative coup, reaction and fallout is mounting, both in Brazil and the region. Leftist governments in Latin America and Brazil had enjoyed a very close relationship under PT, but now Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador have withdrawn top diplomats from Brazil, and the secretary general of UNASUR, the Union of South American Nations, is convening extraordinary meetings of foreign ministers to discuss the situation in Brazil.

Meanwhile within the country the protests against the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff have been taking place, and numerous social movements have declared their intention to defend the social policies of the last ten years under PT.To discuss what is going on in Brazil and its new conservative president, Michel Temer, is Mark Weisbrot. Mark is the codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and he's the president of the organization of Just Foreign Policy and the author of the book Failed: What the "Experts" Got Wrong about the Global Economy.

Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. He is author of the book Failed: What the "Experts" Got Wrong About the Global Economy (Oxford University Press, 2015), co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: The Phony Crisis (University of Chicago Press, 2000), and has written numerous research papers on economic policy. He writes a column on economic and policy issues that is distributed to over 550 newspapers by the Tribune Content Agency. His opinion pieces have appeared in The Guardian, New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and most major U.S. newspapers, as well as in Brazil's largest newspaper, Folha de Sao Paulo. He appears regularly on national and local television and radio programs. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy.

Friday, September 02, 2016

Turkey’s Coup: Winners and Losers

As the dust begins to settle from the failed Turkish coup, there appear to be some winners and losers, although predicting things in the Middle East these days is a tricky business. What is clear is that several alignments have shifted, shifts that may have an impact on the two regional running sores: the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.

The most obvious winner to emerge from the abortive military putsch is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his campaign to transform Turkey from a parliamentary democracy to a powerful, centralized executive with himself in charge. The most obvious losers are Erdogan’s internal opposition and the Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Post-coup Turkish unity has conspicuously excluded the Kurdish-based People’s Democratic Party (HDP), even though the party condemned the July 15 coup. A recent solidarity rally in Istanbul called by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) included the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), but the HDP—the third-largest political organization in the country—was not invited.

The deliberate snub is part of Erdogan’s campaign to disenfranchise the HDP and force new elections that could give him the votes he needs to call a referendum on the presidency. This past June, Endogen pushed through a bill lifting immunity for 152 parliament members, making them liable for prosecution on charges of supporting terrorism. Out of the HDP’s 59 deputies, 55 are now subject to the new law. If the HDP deputies are convicted of terrorism charges, they will be forced to resign and by elections will be held to replace them.

While Erdogan’s push for a powerful executive is not overwhelmingly popular with most Turks—polls show that only 38.4 percent support it –the President’s popularity jumped from 47 percent before the coup to 68 percent today. With the power of state behind him, and the nationalism generated by the ongoing war against the Kurds in Turkey’s southeast, Erdogan can probably pick up the 14 seats he needs to get the referendum.

The recent Turkish invasion of Syria is another front in Erdogan’s war on the Kurds. While the surge of Turkish armor and troops across the border was billed as an attack on the Islamic State’s (IS) occupation of the town of Jarablus near the Turkish border, it was in fact aimed at the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG).

According to Al Monitor, the IS had been withdrawing from the town for weeks in the face of a YPG offensive, and the Turks invaded to preempt the Kurds from taking the town. The question now will be how far south the Turks go, and whether they will get in a full-scale battle with America’s Kurdish allies? The Turkish military has already supported the Free Syrian Army in several clashes with the Kurds. Since the invasion included a substantial amount of heavy engineering equipment, the Turks may be planning to stay awhile.

While the YPG serves as the U.S.’s ground force in the fight against the IS, the Americans strongly backed the Turkish invasion and sharply warned the Kurds to withdraw from the west bank of the Euphrates or lose Washington’s support.

The Kurds in Syria are now directly threatened by Turkey, were attacked in Hasaka Province by the Syrian government, and have been sharply reprimanded by their major ally, the U.S. The Turkish Kurds are under siege from the Turkish army, and their parliamentary deputies are facing terrorism charges at the hands of the Erdogan government. The Turkish air force is also pounding the Kurds in Iraq. All in all, it was a bad couple of weeks to be Kurdish.

There are others winners and losers as well

Erdogan has been strengthened, but most observers think Turkey has been weakened regionally and internationally. It looks as if an agreement with the European Union (EU) for money and visa free travel if Ankara blocks the waves of immigrants headed toward Europe is falling apart. The German parliament is up in arms over Erdogan’s heavy-handed repression of his internal opposition and his support for extremist groups in Syria.

Turkey’s decision to shoot down a Russian bomber last Nov. 24 has badly backfired. Russian sanctions dented the Turkish economy and Moscow poured sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons into Syria, effectively preventing any possibility of the Turks or the U.S. establishing a “no fly zone.”

Erdogan was also forced to write a letter of apology for the downing and trot off to St. Petersburg for a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. All were smiles and hand shakes at the Aug. 9 get-together, but the Russians have used the tension generated by the incident to advance their plans for constructing gas pipelines that would bypass Ukraine. Indeed, the EU and Turkey are now in a bidding war over whether the pipeline will go south—Turkish Stream— through Turkey and the Black Sea, or north—Nord Stream—through the Baltic Sea and into Germany.

Erdogan apparently has concluded that Russia and Iran have effectively blocked a military solution to the Syrian civil war, and Ankara has backed off its demand that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has to go before there can be any resolution of the conflict. Turkey now says Assad can be part of a transition government, pretty much the same position as the Russians take. Iran—at least for now—is more invested in keeping Assad in power.

Iran has also come out of this affair in a stronger position. Its strategic alliance with Russia has blocked the overthrow of Assad, Teheran’s major ally in the region, and its potential markets have the Turks wanting to play nice.

Any Moscow-Ankara-Tehran alliance will be a fractious one, however.

Turkey is still a member of NATO—it has the second largest army in the alliance—and its military is largely reliant on the U.S. for its equipment. NATO needs Turkey, although the Turks have mixed feelings about the alliance. A poll taken a year ago found only 30 percent of Turks trusted NATO. The post coup polls may be worse, because it was the pro-NATO sections of the military that were most closely tied to the putsch.

Iran’s Shiite government is wary of Erdogan’s ties to the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and Ankara’s close relations with Iran’s major regional nemesis, Saudi Arabia. The Russians also have a tense relationship with Iran, although Moscow played a key role in the nuclear agreement between the U.S. and Teheran, and Iran calls its ties with Russia “strategic.”

The Saudis look like losers in all this. They—along with Turkey, France, Britain, and most the Gulf monarchies—thought Assad would be a push over. He wasn’t, and five years later some 400,000 Syrians are dead, three million have been turned into refugees, and the war has spread into Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

The Yemen war has predictably turned into a quagmire, and even Saudi Arabia’s allies are beginning to edge away from the human catastrophe that the conflict has inflicted on Yemen’s civilian population. The United Arab Emirates, which provided ground forces for the Saudis, is withdrawing troops, and even the U.S. has cut back on the advisors assigned to aid the kingdom’s unrestricted air war on the rebel Houthis. U.S. Defense Department spokesman Adam Stump said aid to Riyadh was not a “blank check,” and several U.S. Congress members and peace groups are trying to halt a $1.15 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia.

In military terms, the Yemen war—like the Syrian war—is unwinnable, and Washington is beginning to realize that. In fact, were it not for the U.S. and British aid to the Saudis, including weapons resupply, in-air refueling of war planes, and intelligence gathering, the war would grind to a halt.

The Saudis are in trouble on the home front as well. Their push to overthrow Assad and the Houthis has turned into expensive stalemates at a time when oil prices are at an all-time low. The Kingdom has been forced to borrow money and curb programs aimed at dealing with widespread unemployment among young Saudis. And the Islamic State has targeted the kingdom with more than 25 attacks over the past year.

Ending the Yemen war would not be that difficult, starting with an end to aid for the Saudi air war. Then the UN could organize a conference of all Yemeni parties—excluding the IS and al-Qaeda—to schedule elections and create a national unity government.

Syria will be considerably more challenging. The Independent’s long-time Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn calls the conflict a three-dimensional chess game with nine players and no rules. But a solution is possible.

The outside powers—the U.S., Turkey, Russia, Iran, and the Gulf monarchies—will have to stop fueling their allies with weapons and money and step back from direct involvement in the war. They will also have to accept the fact that no one can dictate to the Syrians who will rule them. That is an internal affair that will be up to the parties engaged in the civil war ( minus the IS and the al-Qaeda linked Nusra Front.)

The Kurdish question will be central to this. The Syrian Kurds must have a place at the table regardless of Turkish opposition. The Iranians are also hostile to the Kurds because of problems with their own Kurdish population. If there is to be eventual peace in the region, Ankara will also have to end its war against the Kurds in southeast Turkey. Turkish army attacks have killed more than 700 civilians, generated 100,000 refugees, and smashed up several cities. The Kurds have been asking for negotiations and Ankara should take them up on that.

Erdogan has made peace with the Kurds before—even though part of the reason was a cynical ploy to snare conservative Kurdish voters for the AKP. It was also Erdogan who rekindled the war as a strategy to weaken the Kurdish-based HDP and regain the majority that the AKP lost in the June 2015 elections. The ploy largely worked, and a snap election four months later saw the HDP lose seats and the AKP win back its majority. The Turkish president, however, did not get the two-thirds he needs to schedule a referendum.

Erdogan is a stubborn man, and a popular one in the aftermath of the failed coup. But Turkey is vulnerable regionally and internationally, two arenas where the U.S., the EU, and the Russians can apply pressure. The hardheaded Turkish president has already backed off in his confrontation with the Russians and climbed down from his demand that Assad had to go before any serious negotiations could start.

If the chess masters agree to some rules they could bring these two tragic wars to a close.

Thursday, September 01, 2016

Statement of Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba on the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff

Havana - The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba strongly rejects the parliamentary and judicial coup d’état perpetrated against President Dilma Rousseff.

The Government’s estrangement from the President, without presenting any evidence of corruption or crimes of responsibility against her, as well as from the Workers’ Party (PT) and other left-wing allied political forces, is an act of defiance against the sovereign will of the people who voted for her.

The governments headed by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff implemented a socio-economic model that made it possible for Brazil to take a step forward in areas such as production growth with social inclusion, the creation of jobs, the fight against poverty, the eradication of extreme poverty among more than 35 million Brazilians who used to live in inhumane conditions and income increase for another 40 million; the expansion of opportunities in the areas of education and health for the people, including those sectors who had been previously marginalized.

During this period, Brazil has been an active promoter of Latin American and Caribbean integration. The defeat of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), the celebration of the Latin American and Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development (CALC) which led to the creation of CELAC and foundation of UNASUR are transcendental events in the recent history of the region which show the leading role played by that country.

Likewise, Brazil’s approach to the Third World nations, particularly Africa; its active membership in the BRICS Group (made up by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa); and its performance at the United Nations Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); and the World Trade Organization, among others, are an acknowledgement of its international leadership.

Equally praiseworthy has been Brazil’s performance under the Workers’ Party governments in crucial international issues for the defense of peace, development, the environment and the programs against hunger.

The efforts made by Lula and Dilma to reform the political system and organize the funding of parties and their campaigns as well as in support of the investigations started against corruption and the independence of the institutions responsible for such investigations are too well known.

The forces that are currently exercising power have announced the privatization of deep water oil reserves and social programs curtailments. Likewise, they are proclaiming a foreign policy focused on the relations with the big international centers of power. Quite a few among those who are impeaching the President are currently under investigation for acts of corruption.

What happened in Brazil is another expression of the offensive of imperialism and the oligarchy against the revolutionary and progressive governments of Latin America and the Caribbean which threatens peace and stability of nations and is contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, signed at the Second CELAC Summit in January, 2014, in Havana by the Heads of State and Government of the region.

Cuba reiterates its solidarity with President Dilma and comrade Lula as well as with the Worker’s Party, and is confident that the Brazilian people will defend the social achievements that have been attained and will resolutely oppose the neoliberal policies that others may try to impose on them and the plundering of its natural resources.

Carrot and stick carve-up will not work for Israel

Launched this month, as much of the world was on holiday, Avigdor Lieberman’s plan for the Palestinians – retooling Israel’s occupation – received less attention than it should.

Defence minister since May, Mr Lieberman has been itching to accelerate Israel’s annexation by stealth of the West Bank.

His “carrot and stick” plan has three components. First, he intends to sideline the Palestinian Authority in favour of a new local leadership of “notables” hand-picked by Israel.

Preferring to “cut out the middle man”, in his words, he will open a dialogue with supposedly more responsible Palestinians – business people, academics and mayors.

Next, he has established a new communications unit that will speak in Arabic over the heads of the PA in the West Bank and its Hamas rivals in Gaza directly to ordinary Palestinians.

An online campaign – budgeted at $2.6 million – will seek to convince them of Israel’s good intentions. The Palestinians’ problems, according to Mr Lieberman, derive from corrupt and inciteful national leaderships, not the occupation.

And finally, his defence ministry will produce a map of the West Bank marking in green and red the areas where, respectively, “good” and “bad” Palestinians live. Collective punishment will be stepped up in towns and villages in red areas, from which Palestinian attacks have been launched. Presumably night raids and house demolitions will increase, while closures will further curtail freedom of movement.

Palestinians in green areas will reap economic rewards for their good behaviour. They will be given work permits in Israel and the settlements, and benefit from development projects, including the creation of Israeli-controlled industrial zones.

It sounds like the musings of a 19th century colonial official on how best to prevent the natives turning restless. Ahmed Majdalani, an adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, told the Haaretz newspaper the new arrangements assumed Palestinans were “stupid and lacking self-respect” and could be “bought with economic perks”.

Mr Lieberman’s longer-term goal is to persuade Palestinians – and the international community – that their aspirations for self-determination are unattainable and counter-productive

Israel has tried that approach before, as Palestinian officials pointed out. Decades ago, Israel sought to manage the occupation by imposing on the local population Palestinian collaborators, termed “Village Leagues”. Armed by the Israeli military, they were supposed to stamp out political activism and support for the PLO.

By the early 1980s the experiment had to be abandoned, as Palestinians refused to accept the leagues’ corrupt and self-serving rule. An uprising, the first intifada, followed a short time later.

Israel’s agreement to the PA’s creation under the Oslo accords in the mid-1990s was, in part, an acceptance that the occupied territories needed a more credible security contractor, this time in the form of the Palestinian national leadership.

Whatever Mr Lieberman and others claim, the Palestinian leaderships in the West Bank and Gaza are the last parties to blame for the recent wave of Palestinian unrest. The attacks have been mostly carried out spontaneously by “lone wolves”, not organised groups. Many occur in Jerusalem, from which all political activity is barred.

Mr Abbas has described the “security coordination” with Israel as “sacred”, aware that his PA will not survive long if it does not demonstrate its usefulness to Israel. His security services have subdued Palestinian resistance more effectively than the Israeli army.

Bereft of regional allies and a credible strategy, even Hamas have chosen quiet since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, its lethal wrecking spree in Gaza in 2014. It has kept the tiny coastal enclave locked down. Rocket fire – one of the few remaining, if largely symbolic, ways to confront Israel – all but ceased long ago.

The silence from Gaza was briefly disturbed a week ago by a rocket fired by a small ISIL-linked group. Despite Hamas’s disavowal of the attack, Mr Lieberman demonstrated his new big stick by bombarding government sites in Gaza in a show of force unseen over the past two years. The futility of this approach – blaming the official leaderships for the roiling frustration and resentment of those they formally lead – should be self-evident.

Ordinary Palestinians, not officials, endure the endless expansion of settlements and the resulting takeover of their agricultural lands. Ordinary Palestinians, not their leaders, face daily abuses at checkpoints and in military raids. Reports at the weekend suggested soldiers were deliberately kneecapping youths at protests to permanently disable them.

Round-ups, torture, military courts that always find the accused guilty – these are the rites of passage for Palestinians in the West Bank. For Palestinians in Gaza, it is slow starvation, homelessness and a random missile rain of death.

An Israeli strategy that failed decades ago – before the PA even existed – is not going to succeed now. Social media campaigns and paltry handouts will not persuade Palestinians they are nothing more than a humanitarian problem.

They are not about to shelve their dreams of liberation just because Mr Lieberman colour-codes them in red and green.

Carrot and stick carve-up will not work for Israel

29 August 2016

The National – 29 August 2016
Launched this month, as much of the world was on holiday, Avigdor
Lieberman’s plan for the Palestinians – retooling Israel’s occupation –
received less attention than it should.
Defence minister since May, Mr Lieberman has been itching to accelerate Israel’s annexation by stealth of the West Bank.
His “carrot and stick” plan has three components. First, he intends
to sideline the Palestinian Authority in favour of a new local
leadership of “notables” hand-picked by Israel.
Preferring to “cut out the middle man”, in his words, he will open a
dialogue with supposedly more responsible Palestinians – business
people, academics and mayors.
Next, he has established a new communications unit that will speak in
Arabic over the heads of the PA in the West Bank and its Hamas rivals
in Gaza directly to ordinary Palestinians.
An online campaign – budgeted at $2.6 million – will seek to convince
them of Israel’s good intentions. The Palestinians’ problems, according
to Mr Lieberman, derive from corrupt and inciteful national
leaderships, not the occupation.
And finally, his defence ministry will produce a map of the West Bank
marking in green and red the areas where, respectively, “good” and
“bad” Palestinians live. Collective punishment will be stepped up in
towns and villages in red areas, from which Palestinian attacks have
been launched. Presumably night raids and house demolitions will
increase, while closures will further curtail freedom of movement.
Palestinians in green areas will reap economic rewards for their good
behaviour. They will be given work permits in Israel and the
settlements, and benefit from development projects, including the
creation of Israeli-controlled industrial zones.
It sounds like the musings of a 19th century colonial official on how
best to prevent the natives turning restless. Ahmed Majdalani, an
adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, told the Haaretz newspaper the new
arrangements assumed Palestinans were “stupid and lacking self-respect”
and could be “bought with economic perks”.
Mr Lieberman’s longer-term goal is to persuade Palestinians – and the
international community – that their aspirations for self-determination
are unattainable and counter-productive
Israel has tried that approach before, as Palestinian officials
pointed out. Decades ago, Israel sought to manage the occupation by
imposing on the local population Palestinian collaborators, termed
“Village Leagues”. Armed by the Israeli military, they were supposed to
stamp out political activism and support for the PLO.
By the early 1980s the experiment had to be abandoned, as
Palestinians refused to accept the leagues’ corrupt and self-serving
rule. An uprising, the first intifada, followed a short time later.
Israel’s agreement to the PA’s creation under the Oslo accords in the
mid-1990s was, in part, an acceptance that the occupied territories
needed a more credible security contractor, this time in the form of the
Palestinian national leadership.
Whatever Mr Lieberman and others claim, the Palestinian leaderships
in the West Bank and Gaza are the last parties to blame for the recent
wave of Palestinian unrest. The attacks have been mostly carried out
spontaneously by “lone wolves”, not organised groups. Many occur in
Jerusalem, from which all political activity is barred.
Mr Abbas has described the “security coordination” with Israel as
“sacred”, aware that his PA will not survive long if it does not
demonstrate its usefulness to Israel. His security services have subdued
Palestinian resistance more effectively than the Israeli army.
Bereft of regional allies and a credible strategy, even Hamas have
chosen quiet since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, its lethal
wrecking spree in Gaza in 2014. It has kept the tiny coastal enclave
locked down. Rocket fire – one of the few remaining, if largely
symbolic, ways to confront Israel – all but ceased long ago.
The silence from Gaza was briefly disturbed a week ago by a rocket
fired by a small ISIL-linked group. Despite Hamas’s disavowal of the
attack, Mr Lieberman demonstrated his new big stick by bombarding
government sites in Gaza in a show of force unseen over the past two
years. The futility of this approach – blaming the official leaderships
for the roiling frustration and resentment of those they formally lead –
should be self-evident.
Ordinary Palestinians, not officials, endure the endless expansion of
settlements and the resulting takeover of their agricultural lands.
Ordinary Palestinians, not their leaders, face daily abuses at
checkpoints and in military raids. Reports at the weekend suggested
soldiers were deliberately kneecapping youths at protests to permanently
disable them.
Round-ups, torture, military courts that always find the accused
guilty – these are the rites of passage for Palestinians in the West
Bank. For Palestinians in Gaza, it is slow starvation, homelessness and a
random missile rain of death.
An Israeli strategy that failed decades ago – before the PA even
existed – is not going to succeed now. Social media campaigns and paltry
handouts will not persuade Palestinians they are nothing more than a
humanitarian problem.
They are not about to shelve their dreams of liberation just because Mr Lieberman colour-codes them in red and green.

- See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-08-29/carrot-and-stick-carve-up-will-not-work-for-israel/#sthash.hSn5XLcc.dpuf

Carrot and stick carve-up will not work for Israel

29 August 2016

The National – 29 August 2016
Launched this month, as much of the world was on holiday, Avigdor
Lieberman’s plan for the Palestinians – retooling Israel’s occupation –
received less attention than it should.
Defence minister since May, Mr Lieberman has been itching to accelerate Israel’s annexation by stealth of the West Bank.
His “carrot and stick” plan has three components. First, he intends
to sideline the Palestinian Authority in favour of a new local
leadership of “notables” hand-picked by Israel.
Preferring to “cut out the middle man”, in his words, he will open a
dialogue with supposedly more responsible Palestinians – business
people, academics and mayors.
Next, he has established a new communications unit that will speak in
Arabic over the heads of the PA in the West Bank and its Hamas rivals
in Gaza directly to ordinary Palestinians.
An online campaign – budgeted at $2.6 million – will seek to convince
them of Israel’s good intentions. The Palestinians’ problems, according
to Mr Lieberman, derive from corrupt and inciteful national
leaderships, not the occupation.
And finally, his defence ministry will produce a map of the West Bank
marking in green and red the areas where, respectively, “good” and
“bad” Palestinians live. Collective punishment will be stepped up in
towns and villages in red areas, from which Palestinian attacks have
been launched. Presumably night raids and house demolitions will
increase, while closures will further curtail freedom of movement.
Palestinians in green areas will reap economic rewards for their good
behaviour. They will be given work permits in Israel and the
settlements, and benefit from development projects, including the
creation of Israeli-controlled industrial zones.
It sounds like the musings of a 19th century colonial official on how
best to prevent the natives turning restless. Ahmed Majdalani, an
adviser to Mahmoud Abbas, told the Haaretz newspaper the new
arrangements assumed Palestinans were “stupid and lacking self-respect”
and could be “bought with economic perks”.
Mr Lieberman’s longer-term goal is to persuade Palestinians – and the
international community – that their aspirations for self-determination
are unattainable and counter-productive
Israel has tried that approach before, as Palestinian officials
pointed out. Decades ago, Israel sought to manage the occupation by
imposing on the local population Palestinian collaborators, termed
“Village Leagues”. Armed by the Israeli military, they were supposed to
stamp out political activism and support for the PLO.
By the early 1980s the experiment had to be abandoned, as
Palestinians refused to accept the leagues’ corrupt and self-serving
rule. An uprising, the first intifada, followed a short time later.
Israel’s agreement to the PA’s creation under the Oslo accords in the
mid-1990s was, in part, an acceptance that the occupied territories
needed a more credible security contractor, this time in the form of the
Palestinian national leadership.
Whatever Mr Lieberman and others claim, the Palestinian leaderships
in the West Bank and Gaza are the last parties to blame for the recent
wave of Palestinian unrest. The attacks have been mostly carried out
spontaneously by “lone wolves”, not organised groups. Many occur in
Jerusalem, from which all political activity is barred.
Mr Abbas has described the “security coordination” with Israel as
“sacred”, aware that his PA will not survive long if it does not
demonstrate its usefulness to Israel. His security services have subdued
Palestinian resistance more effectively than the Israeli army.
Bereft of regional allies and a credible strategy, even Hamas have
chosen quiet since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, its lethal
wrecking spree in Gaza in 2014. It has kept the tiny coastal enclave
locked down. Rocket fire – one of the few remaining, if largely
symbolic, ways to confront Israel – all but ceased long ago.
The silence from Gaza was briefly disturbed a week ago by a rocket
fired by a small ISIL-linked group. Despite Hamas’s disavowal of the
attack, Mr Lieberman demonstrated his new big stick by bombarding
government sites in Gaza in a show of force unseen over the past two
years. The futility of this approach – blaming the official leaderships
for the roiling frustration and resentment of those they formally lead –
should be self-evident.
Ordinary Palestinians, not officials, endure the endless expansion of
settlements and the resulting takeover of their agricultural lands.
Ordinary Palestinians, not their leaders, face daily abuses at
checkpoints and in military raids. Reports at the weekend suggested
soldiers were deliberately kneecapping youths at protests to permanently
disable them.
Round-ups, torture, military courts that always find the accused
guilty – these are the rites of passage for Palestinians in the West
Bank. For Palestinians in Gaza, it is slow starvation, homelessness and a
random missile rain of death.
An Israeli strategy that failed decades ago – before the PA even
existed – is not going to succeed now. Social media campaigns and paltry
handouts will not persuade Palestinians they are nothing more than a
humanitarian problem.
They are not about to shelve their dreams of liberation just because Mr Lieberman colour-codes them in red and green.

- See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-08-29/carrot-and-stick-carve-up-will-not-work-for-israel/#sthash.hSn5XLcc.dpuf

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Why Hillary is the Perfect Person to Secure Obama’s Legacy

I read a piece that said Hillary, with her speech about racism and extremists taking over the Republican Party, was making a play for a one-party state. That seems rather an exaggeration, but it does contain an important bit of truth.

I do indeed believe Hillary thinks along the lines of a one-party state as suggested, but without ever saying so directly, and she is not focused on the particular political party with which she is now associated.

Hillary stands for the establishment, and her views appear to include the idea that anyone without attachment to that establishment is to be designated as a kind of “plebe,” as in 1984, or even “untouchable,” as in the old Indian caste system. That’s the approach that she took in her “racism” speech. It is, if you will, very much a one-party approach to politics as well as an implicitly anti-democratic one.

And, of course, it represents a truly super-arrogant attitude.

But isn’t that the natural inclination of all tyrant temperaments? And there is every indication in Hillary’s past acts and words of a tyrant’s temperament.

Her views on the military and on a long history of events from the FBI Waco massacre (she advocated for aggressive FBI action to get the event out of the headlines) and the bombing of Belgrade (which she advocated privately to her husband) to the invasion of Iraq (which she supported as a Senator) and the death of Libya’s Gadhafi (there’s her infamous, “We came, we saw, he died. Ha, ha, ha,” quote as Secretary of State) to the employment of paid terrorists and poison gas in Syria (an operation she oversaw as Secretary of State), could provide a good working definition of a tyrant’s temperament.

And just look at her close friends and associates in, or formerly in, government, people like Victoria Nuland or Madeleine Albright, extreme Neocon advocates for violence and America’s right to dictate how others should live. Madelaine Albright is best remembered for answering a journalist in an interview, when questioned about tens of thousands of Iraqi children dying in America’s embargo, “We think it’s worth it.” She is also remembered for her dirty, behind-the-scenes work in dumping as Secretary General of the UN, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a highly intelligent, fair-minded, and decent man who just happened to disagree with the United States once too often. Victoria Nuland’s claims to fame include being recorded talking about America’s spending $5 billion to create the coup in Ukraine. There is also her wonderfully diplomatic quote, “Fuck Europe,” and a seemingly endless stream of photos of her scowling into cameras.

And the same temperament is revealed in her record of “I know better than the expert`” when it comes to matters such as a Secretary of State’s protocols around computer security. Again, her record as First Lady with the Secret Service agents assigned to her protection was so unpleasantly arrogant that there is a residual of ill will still towards her in the Secret Service, enough to cause a number of past agents to tell tales out of school to journalists and in books.

Hillary likes to use language in public speeches which puts her “on the side of the angels” where various social issues are concerned, but it is entirely an advertising campaign of no substance, much resembling the big, clown-like or grimacing smiles she puts on at public events. Many mistakenly associate her with the historic traditions of the liberal left in the older Democratic Party, the kind of traditions Bernie Sanders brought momentarily flickering back to life, although they are in reality now virtually dead in the Democratic Party. Her actual record of behavior, as opposed to her “sound bites” and slogans, just cannot support that view of her as a liberal or progressive light.

Just to start, Hillary conducted the most corrupt campaign against Bernie Sanders I can recall in my adult lifetime. It included an inappropriate insider relationship with the Chairman of the Party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who used every opportunity with the press and other means to disadvantage Bernie Sanders. It included voter suppression in a number of states as well as outright vote fraud in a number of others. Academic statistical analysis of the primaries’ data suggests that Bernie Sanders in fact won the nomination.

Search as you might, you will not find a history of Hillary actually being involved, beyond uttering slogans every so often, with social issues. She has no record at all. But her history does very much include such acts as being fired from her early job as a Watergate Committee lawyer for unethical behavior (the man who fired the young lawyer still has his contemporary notes of the event) and, in an early volunteer case, grinding down a 12-year old rape victim about fantasizing over older men and getting her brutal 42-year old attacker freed, smiling in an interview later that she in fact knew he was guilty.

There is literally a line of women who were her predator husband’s lovers at one time or another who say that Hillary afterwards approached them with threats about keeping their mouths shut. And, perhaps her single clearest achievement on social issues, is her record of enabling her husband to carry on with a convicted pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, who lives on a private island and keeps a stable of underage girls for the use of visitors. He is a very wealthy man with wealthy friends and arranges large political contributions, so he receives visitors such as Bill. Epstein actually once claimed he co-founded the Clinton Foundation, and he and associates have made large donations, tens of millions. We have a documented record of 28 trips to the island by Bill, and there is no way on earth Hillary wouldn’t know about them. Just as there is no way she could not know about important developments with the Clinton Foundation. She implicitly approved of the relationship with her often seen money-before-morals attitude.

Her husband’s office-leaving pardon of Marc Rich is often regarded as corrupt and having been paid for by Mr. Rich’s family and friends who donated large and continuing sums over time. Mr. Rich had been indicted in New York for tax evasion and fraud, but perhaps the outstanding aspect of his career, as it relates to Hillary and her slogans about social issues, is the way he made a considerable part of his fortune. He smuggled oil to the apartheid government of South Africa over time against international sanctions, and he is said to have made $2 billion doing so. Well, it does seem more than a little hypocritical to have supported a pardon for this man and then today to be giving speeches on someone else’s purported racism, and even to have been photographed, with toe-scrunching smarminess, eating fried chicken with a group of black voters.

We also have the fact of her talking, quite fiercely and recorded on video, about black “super-predators” when she was First Lady. Her husband signed legislation which likely put more young black males in prison than any other piece of legislation. Bill also bragged, as he signed another bill, of ending “welfare as we know it,” again legislation which hit poor black people hard. And, in all these acts, we know he had Hillary’s support. By a great many reports, Bill Clinton never dared do anything major of which his wife disapproved. With his years of flagrant sexual adventures and his need, on more than one political occasion, for her public lies of support when he was caught out, she had a virtual hammer over his head. Besides, Hillary has always regarded herself as having considerable acumen in such policy matters, and hers is a personality type you do not comfortably ignore.

In terms of pure competence, despite her assuming a public air of swaggering competence, her record is simply meagre to poor. We can return to that early instance, her dismissal from the Watergate Investigation for what her boss called unethical conduct and lying. Later, as First Lady, she took over the healthcare portfolio from her husband, the President, with unprecedented arrogance for an unelected person and one holding no formal appointment to office, and she failed badly in the complicated task.

As a Senator from New York, her eight-year record is remarkably undistinguished. Only three bills she sponsored became law, a bill to rename a highway, a bill to re-name a post office building, and a bill to designate a house as a national historic site. As Secretary of State, she of course ran the Benghazi operation which saw an American Ambassador and others killed, and her handling of the families of the dead afterwards, as the bodies were returned, echoes to this day with insensitivity and even brutality. She is deeply resented by family members and accused of lying.

I do believe it would be a difficult task to come up with a more fitting candidate than Hillary Clinton for carrying on the Obama legacy, a legacy of killing in a half dozen lands on behalf of America’s establishment, lying daily, and leaving your own people, the people who elected you with great hopes more than seven years ago, with nothing.

This Week on GR

On Monday, a historic "permanent ceasefire" agreement between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC was ratified, paving the way for an end to a civil conflict lasting more than half a century. Or so the headlines read. Representatives of the two parties have spent the last several years hammering away at peace negotiations in Havana, Cuba, and while there was dancing in the streets this week at news Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos' military forces would cease attacks against the FARC, there was no guarantee against increasingly powerful private armies and death squads continuing their war on rural peasants and urban Unionistas.

And worse, fears are, those loyal to former president and head of the official opposition in Colombia, Alvaro Uribe will follow his lead in opposing the peace accord the only way they know how, with violence.

Daniel Kovalik teaches international human rights law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is Senior Associate General Counsel for the United Steel Workers union. He's also a long-time peace and justice activist, specializing in that in Colombia and Central America, where he serves as an attorney for Colombian plaintiffs in cases alleging corporate human rights violations. Kovalik is also co-recipient of a Project Censored Award for chronicling the murder of trade unionists in Colombia.

Dan Kovalik in the first half.

And; all is not well in British Columbia either, where the oppressive weight of colonial history is straining relations with First Nations on myriad issues. There is a distinct sense of tension here, a feeling of impending collapse, as though one were watching a heavily laden camel standing unsteadily beneath an overloaded hay loft. The anticipation is a wondering, "Which issue will prove the proverbial straw to lay the dromedary low?"

Kiff Archer has worked decades with his partner, Deb "Wilhpun" Nelson to help save the Bears and Wolves of the Bella Coola Valley, at the end of the only road entering deep into the Great Bear Rainforest. He's just returned from the Kwatna Gathering, a meeting of Bear-loving Central Coast nations, who have called a moratorium on trophy hunting in their territories. Kiff Archer and standing Stronger Together to end trophy bear hunting forever in the Great Bear Rainforest in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher emeritus and CFUV Radio broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour to bring us newz of good goings-on in, on, and around our streets, and beyond there too, for the coming week. But first, Dan Kovalik and Colombia's dissonant Peace Accords.

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Three Cheers for Kaepernick: Is Sitting During the National Anthem an Acceptable Form of Protest?

“Yes, I’ll continue to sit. I’m going to continue to stand with the people that are being oppressed. To me this is something that has to change. When there’s significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it’s supposed to represent, and this country is representing people the way that it’s supposed to, I’ll stand.” — Colin Kaepernick

If you don’t think it takes guts to stay seated during the National Anthem, then buy a ticket for a major sporting event –let’s say, a baseball game– and refuse to stand up when the singing starts. Then you’ll see the fur fly. Then you’ll see how rankled people get when you don’t participate in their patriotic rituals.

On Friday night, San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, refused to stand for the national anthem before a preseason game with the Green Bay Packers. As a result, he’s been universally excoriated, scorned and reviled by liberals and conservatives alike. I mean, it’s only been 48 hours since the incident, and already the man has already been dragged through the meat grinder. Almost overnight, Kaepernick has become the guy that everyone loves to hate, the new Hitler.

But, why? Because he had the audacity to make a statement about the treatment of blacks in America today? Because he wanted to draw attention to the numerous young black men that have gunned down by cops in cities across the country? Because he wanted people to realize that the “land of the free” ain’t so free if your skin isn’t lily-white? Is that why everyone is so pissed off?

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color…To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” (C. Kaepernick)

He’s got a point, doesn’t he? The killing of black men by cops has reached an epidemic level and yet nothing ever happens. Nothing. The perpetrators conjure up some goofy alibi with the help of their lawyers, and invariably get off scott-free. Every damn time. Why is that? Why can’t African Americans get justice in this country? It’s sickening and ridiculous at the same time.

Why is it ridiculous?

It’s ridiculous because the masses are more incensed about Kaepernick’s ‘sit-down’ protest than they are about the dozens of black men who end up getting snuffed-out by trigger-happy cops. Talk about ‘getting your priorities wrong.’

So now we’re going to have to suffer through weeks of anti-Kaepernick hysteria and demonization so the media can further exacerbate racial divisions by triggering a firestorm of rage from the uber-patriot crowd that thinks that black athletes should ‘shut-the-hell-up and play ball or leave the country’.

Think I’m kidding? Take a look at some of these statements on the Washington Post comments line:

“What a F-ing clown. His sorry a** should be focused on claiming the starting spot and gaining the respect and trust of his teammates instead some stupid a** protest. He’s done. What a scrub!” DooDoo

“This Country does NOT oppress anyone….stop being a victim.” Barry Rock

“What an A Hole. Blacks kill each other on a nightly basis in every city in this country. No one brings up black lives matter then do they? Maybe people should put their efforts into stopping these senseless killings. Only when it is a cop killing a black, which by the way were doing things criminally wrong in the first place, does anyone want to protest. Sorry I mean loot, vandalize and burn down cities. I was taught at a young age if you stay out of trouble you won’t have any problems with the law. There’s a new concept for you. Kapernick you can rot in hell.” Yogi4130

“….Somebody needs to slap a pair of fatigues on this little nitwit and drop him off in a firefight in the Afghan War. My guess is he lives in a gated community where he has the darkest skin of anyone. Millionaire sport figures, even ones who don’t perform all that well, are not an inspiration for social justice. Colin should work on his performance in the game rather than try and make social statements.” Vanzetti

“Kaepernick has every right to act like a sulking egotistical brat. Fans have every right to think less of him, and of the team’s management.” balt21212

“A lot of people died in my family so this millionaire dimwit ball-chucker can shoot his uninformed mouth off when he wants and disrespect our country. If I owned the SF team I would sack you by text message, Colin.” Roy

“I’m about as liberal as they come, but I’d fire his a** if I owned the 49ers. I can’t think of many companies that would allow their employees to use their workplace, uniform, resources and reputation as props for personal and controversial protests.” recordhigh

“What has this slime done for this country except get paid way too much for throwing a football. It is just a game. This guy is just another Jesse Jackson/ Al Sharpton poverty pimp in the making.” liberty

Nice, eh? And there’s nothing unusual about the comments I chose either, in fact, the vast majority of the submissions were stridently anti-Kaepernick.

But does Kaepernick really deserve this outpouring of hated and vitriol? Isn’t he just asking whether the values espoused in the National Anthem actually apply to African Americans or not? That’s a fair question, isn’t it?

Think of it this way: Maybe this IS the “land of the free and the home of the brave” if you’re white, but if you’re black, not so much.

Do you really get a square deal in America if you’re black? Is it really a level playing field? Is equal opportunity a fact or fiction? Aren’t you much more likely to be harassed, threatened, brutalized and incarcerated if you’re black than if you’re white?

These are no-brainer questions. Everyone knows the answers to these questions if they’re honest with themselves, that is. Life is just tougher if you are black in America, there’s no two-ways about it.

So why don’t we try something entirely different for once. Why don’t we give Kaepernick the benefit of the doubt and assume that he’s not an attention-seeking “America hater”. Let’s assume that he’s just trying to do the right thing by pointing out our shortcomings as a nation just like Mohammed Ali did when he refused to be inducted into the military in April, 1967.

Remember that? At the time Ali was raked over the coals too, but he toughed it out because he was a man of principal. People conveniently forget about the hostility and scorn that was heaped on Ali because it doesn’t jibe with the modern-day remake of Ali as a national treasure. But, trust me, the man was more widely despised than Kaepernick.

And Ali didn’t hate America any more than Kaepernick does. He just decided that it was more important to do the right thing and take his lumps than stay silent and cave in to public pressure.

It looks to me like Kaepernick is following the same moral blueprint. He just wants America to deliver on its promise of freedom and equality for all.

The Dumbed Down Times Columnist: Sometimes you can't believe people can write such crap

I was reading the latest smug piece by New York Times columnist Timothy Egan, when I came across the most amusing example of being what you're criticizing. Egan, in a piece titled "The Dumbed Down Democracy," bemoaned the spreading ignorance of the American electorate.

Not only are 10 percent of Americans illiterate, Egan groaned. They're also "politically illiterate." Expressing mock astonishment, he wrote, "I give you Texas. A recent survey of Donald Trump supporters there found that 40 percent of them believe that Acorn will steal the upcoming election."

He goes on:

"Acorn? News flash: That community-organizing group has been out of existence for six years. Acorn is gone, disbanded. dead. It can no more steal an election than Donald Trump can pole vault over his Mexican wall."

In Egan's view, it's those Trump voters who are ignoramuses.

Egan continues:

"We know that at least 30 million American adults cannot read. But the current presidential election may yet prove that an even bigger part of the citizenry is politically illiterate -- and functional. Which is to say, they will vote despite being unable to accept basic facts needed to process this American life."

Example?

Well, Egan says,

"If Trump supporters knew that illegal immigration peaked in 2007, or that violent crime has been on a steady downward spiral nationwide for more than 20 years, they would scoff when Trump says Mexican rapists are surging across the border and crime is out of control."

Maybe he's right (though I've heard supposedly well-educated college grads tell me they believe the same stuff), but then Egan goes on to write:

"If more than 16 percent of Americans could locate Ukraine on a map, it would have been a Really Big Deal when Trump said that Russia was not going to invade it -- two years after they had, in fact, invaded it."

I don't know what knowing that Ukraine shares a long border with Russia has to do with knowing Russia supposedly invaded the place in 2014, but in any case, Russia never invaded Ukraine. Only in the New York Times would you read such bullshit propaganda.

The NY Times, in April 2014, ran this photo allegedly showing Russian soldiers

fighting in Ukraine, based on unverified claims by the Kiev post-coup government.

The image was later shown to have been an old photo taken in Russia, not Ukraine

Egan apparently doesn't know that there has been no evidence of Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, though there are NATO troops, including US ones, there. And as for Crimea, a former part of Ukraine populated by about 90 percent ethnic Russians, it came under Russian military protection not by way of an invasion, but because with the government in Kiev threatening an ethnic cleansing campaign against Russian speakers living in eastern Ukraine and Crimea (where Russia had a long-term lease on its Black Sea naval base), the 20,000 Russian troops stationed in Crimea, also by treaty with Ukraine, simply took control of that territory.

There was then an internationally observed plebiscite, much like ones the US supported in Kosovo and other breakaway states over the years. In that plebiscite, over 90 percent of the citizens said they wanted to rejoin Russia, which Crimea had historically been an integral part of, and so the region was annexed by Russia.

As for the breakaway region in eastern Ukraine known as the Donbass, its primarily ethnic Russian people have been doing their own fighting against Ukranian military forces thank you, albeit with Russian aid (the kind of military aid that the US has provided to Georgia, Ukraine, Syrian rebels, Afghan mujahadeen, and myriad other places. No Russian invasion occurred in the Donbass either. In fact, while the people of Donbass have been begging to be allowed to rejoin Russia, and would probably overwhelmingly vote to do so if allowed a chance, Moscow has said no, for fear of sparking a wider conflict in eastern Europe.

Egan may be confused because he no doubt gets most of his information about current affairs by reading the paper he works for, a paper which is notorious for spreading lies and scare stories about an allegedly resurgent and expansive Russia led by a dangerous dictator, Vladimir Putin. (Putin, for the record, is elected and various polls show him backed by 80-90 percent of Russian people.)

In fact, part of the reason that American voters -- and that applies to Clinton supporters too -- are so "dumb" is that the Times, a publication that much of the rest of the US media rely on to calibrate their own reporting, has been doing such a great job of misinforming them. And not just about Russia. It misinforms them about Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, it misinforms them about NATO, it misinforms them about the nuclear-tipped missiles that the US is installing near Russia's border in Poland, it lies about Venezuela, it lies about Iran, and most egregiously, it lies about Syria, just as it earlier lied about WMDs in Iraq.

Here at home the Times lies too. It lied during the primaries about Bernie Sanders and his chances to win the Democratic primary, and it has lied about Hillary Clinton's accomplishments as First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State.

The thing is, if a supposedly well-intentioned and honest Times columnist like Tim Egan can be so wrong about Russia in the Ukraine, it shows how pernicious the Times lying really is. Either that or Egan is just one of the deliberate liars at the Times.